


All My Friends

by sturmundwank



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, Gen, High School, Teenagers, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-07-16
Packaged: 2018-12-03 00:13:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11520477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sturmundwank/pseuds/sturmundwank
Summary: In the absence of a handsome political activist who's willing to sweep her off her feet, MJ is forced to reckon with her hormones.





	All My Friends

The traumatic memory of getting a sex talk from her mother in the fitting room at Victoria's Secret over the weekend haunted MJ through PE class, which she would have preferred to spend reading _Orientalism_. Under the pretence of buying her a new bra, her mother had lured MJ into a confined space, rendered her defenceless and delivered a painful and unnecessary lecture about contraception, consent and self-acceptance that MJ wished she could erase from her memory forever. She almost had to admire the execution of the whole operation.

 

Hearing her mother utter phrases like 'anal penetration,' 'self-love' and 'clit stimulation' had been bad enough, but what MJ really struggled with was the suspicion her mother thought there was someone MJ wanted to have sex with. A boy, really, though her mother didn't seem to take MJ’s resentful admission of heterosexuality for the definitive statement it was.

 

Like she knew a single dude she could potentially see herself with in a sexual context. Okay, she amended as her treacherous brain pulled up a visual of Peter Parker's unfair smile, a single dude other than the weirdo at her school whose budding career as a drug dealer she'd been observing for months. Where were all the sensitive black men who cared about her thoughts on Rebecca Walker? The Swedish socialist exchange students? The Columbia anthro majors who would run into her at the Frick, invite her to a loft party and maul her neck while LCD Soundsystem played in the background? Surely her expectations were not unreasonable. This was New York, for pity's sake.

 

The point was, her mother's sudden interest in MJ's non-existent sex life made her feel self-conscious, and she never felt self-conscious. Did she _act_ like she was two jello shots away from getting knocked up by some asshole?

 

'You're going too hard,' Ned Leeds said somewhere to her right, jolting her out of her thoughts. 'Coach Wilson is gonna be impressed again.'

 

'Oh, right,' Peter Parker said, slowing down mid-sit-up, and she just knew he was wearing that stupid look of belated realisation on his face even though all she could see of him was his back.

 

Which was a back, just a back like any other back. All dudes had them. Why were some backs nicer to look at than others? Surely there could be no logical evolutionary reason for her to find back muscles attractive when penis-in-vagina sex precluded the vagina owner from looking at the other party's back during intercourse?

 

Oh god, was Ned going to catch her staring? She'd have to transfer to Stuyvesant and change her name if that happened.

 

'Hey, losers,' she said preemptively and they both turned to her in surprise. Score. 'Are you coming to decathlon practice today? Not that I care, but leadership positions, increased responsibility, you know how it is.'

 

'Uh,' Peter said and exchanged a panicked look with Ned. Weed paranoia, MJ mused, disgusted with her own sexuality. 'Yeah?'

 

'Good to know. See you later,' she said and raised her book in front of her face.

 

'Wait, you're reading _Orientalism_?' Peter said after a short pause instead of picking up on her subtle social cues as she'd hoped. 'What do you think so far?'

 

MJ closed her eyes. Really, she wanted to ask the universe. _Really_? White boy Peter Parker wanted to discuss postcolonial criticism with her?

 

'We don't need to have a conversation right now,' she said and pointedly turned the page, which managed to shut him up.

 

Of course, her careful plan to get a grip was foiled less than two minutes later, when, upon hearing a thud and two pained groans, she looked up to see Ned and Peter rolling around on the gym mat like overstimulated toddlers and clutching their foreheads under Coach Wilson's unimpressed eye.

 

As the scene unfolded, she was forced to note that Peter really had remarkably well shaped arms—and okay, fine, nose—for an uncoordinated (sometimes coordinated?) nerd. Annoyingly unambitious nerd with criminal tendencies. Whatever. He was just lucky that his skin was layered over his musculature in that aesthetically pleasing way most people were genetically incapable of replicating no matter how fit they got.

 

MJ paused to reflect on that appalling thought. That was how far she'd fallen. From child genius and future aerospace engineer to perving, very grossly, on the only person at Midtown High who didn't plan to go to college. Grossly and _unrequitedly_.

 

Her inner world was turning into a pathetic hellscape of sexual frustration and her mother had somehow known. MJ quickly looked around to make sure no one was watching and covered her face with her hands.

 

She was _so_ done with high school and she wasn't even done with sophomore year yet.

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from LCD Soundsystem's eponymous song, which I figure MJ listens to with no small amount of irony.
> 
> The idea of writing a gym scene from MJ's point of view wormed into my brain after reading the wonderful [The Lady Doth Protest (in Front of Embassies)](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11499711) by [YankingAwry](http://archiveofourown.org/users/YankingAwry/pseuds/YankingAwry), which I heartily recommend, though I hope the resemblance between the two fics ends there.
> 
> Please hit me with any ideas, criticism, plot bunnies, etc. you can think of!


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